When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
Indeed let us remember the wisdom of the founding fathers:
“Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law.”
~Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814,
“The civil government functions with complete success by the total separation of the Church from the State.”
~James Madison, 1819, Writings, 8:432, quoted from Gene Garman, “Essays In Addition to America’s Real Religion”
“The Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.”
~1797 Treaty of Tripoli signed by John Adams
Enjoy! Happy 4th!
For all you aviation heads out there:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaJzKjtjZnY
These Northrop-Grumman dudes are talented people! Yeah I find it sad that so much talent has to be used to develop weapons of war.
Second Amendment Report (TM)
A parasailer near Chelan drew anti-aircraft fire from an enraged property owner who thought the aircraft was flying “too low” over his property.
http://blogs.seattletimes.com/.....lan-falls/
Roger Rabbit Commentary: What is “too low”? 300 feet? 500 feet? Maybe we’ll have to string yellow tape between poles to mark off the air space within which landowners have a right to “stand their ground.” Or maybe jackasses shouldn’t have guns, period.
Nice post to honor America’s 237th Birthday. Happy Birthday America, and many, many more.
On 4 July 1976, I was the battalion staff duty NCO at 1/36th FA, Augsburg, FRG. I read this column by Art Buchwald in the Stars and Stripes. It brought tears to my eyes then and has stayed with me since. http://books.google.com/books?.....CCwQ6AEwAA
Morons and fireworks don’t mix.
“A 26-year old Seattle man may lose a part of his arm and leg after he ignited a sparkler bomb that exploded … King County Sheriff’s office reported. … The firework the victim ignited at 4:30 a.m. — a bunch of sparklers wrapped together to create a ‘sparkler bomb’ — is illegal, authorities said.”
http://blogs.seattletimes.com/.....enton-man/
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Google “Darwin Awards fireworks” and you’ll find a roster of the stupidest people in America.
http://blogs.seattletimes.com/.....enton-man/
Eleven score and seventeen “years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07.....1&
Pretty insane situation I’d say.. And so many people’s jobs depend on keepin’ the crazy going.. Happy 4th I guess..
150 years ago today, Vicksburg surrendered to Grant and Lee retreated from Gettysburg.
The die was cast, but there were almost two more years of fighting to go.
9)And it only got worse from their on out. Atlanta, Cold Harbor, Fort Fisher/Wilmington, Petersburg. As for the movie “Lincoln”, I wonder if the scene in No Man’s Land with the peace delegation was true. The three men were escorted to Grant’s HQ, by soldiers from what were then called the “colored units”.
Carl, thank-you!
And thank-you to the Veterans and their families who for 237 years have sacrificed so that we might enjoy the opportunity to exercise freedom and self government, of and for the people.
And a big thanks to the civil activists who persisted and still persist in fighting for making our declared self-evident truths legal and economic realities.
Since the last time we celebrated this holiday Washingtonians made the self-evident truth that every Washingtonian is entitled marriage equality a legal reality. Bravo for our American spirit!
Hey, why do you liberals always leave out the part about this being an english speaking christian country?
Happy birthday, America!
From 12,
It’s an English-speaking country because the thirteen colonies were settled by English speakers, but they had different flavors of religion with forms on Christianity being predominant. Not even all Christian sects got along with each other, so, to have no official pre-installed religious conflicts in the new country, the founders chose to NOT have Christianity declared the religion of this country. Many of those guys were Deists, by the way: they believed in some “God,” but didn’t literally believe Jesus was “God’s” son.
So, Christianity is no more the religion of the US than Islam, Judaism, Paganism, or whatever religion you care to name. The good thing about our Constitution is that we have freedom of religion and freedom FROM religion at the same time!
God and Godess bless America!
@14 Ten Bricks Shy,
Not that is surprises anyone here, but you are wrong again.
Go read up on the languages spoken in the in the colony of Pennsylvania, where the Declaration of Independence was signed and which was the colony with the most populated city, Philadelphia.
To wit the 1776 German language version of the Declaration of Independence – http://www.dhm.de/magazine/unabhaengig/
English was but one of many languages read and spoken in the US in the 18th and 19th century.
It is a 20th century phenomenon that we’ve become hookwinked that we were always a single language speaking country.
Only in TexASS:
http://www.nationalreview.com/.....-c-w-cooke
Indeed.. Every day I celebrate PSilly’s RIGHT to be a fool. I and others derive much entertainment from it. Others are freaking bored to tears with it. Should he be incarcerated for it? Of course not..
But not in TexASS, one of PFool’s favorite places..
Damn did I just quote the National Review? Guess I did. Happy 4th.
@14
You know the Continental Congress published official business and many texts in English, German and French, those being the THREE prominent languages in use in the colonies.
In fact, the first newspaper to publish the Declaration of Independence in full was in German.
(Take that one to bar trivia next week. It will serve you well.)
@14 You don’t know a fucking thing about history. Apart from your simple factual mistakes (see #17), you completely misunderstand the big picture of who settled this continent, why, and their thinking behind the type of government they established here.
Many of the early settlers in what became America were fleeing religious persecution in Europe. That’s why religious freedom became a cornerstone of our democracy, not because of infighting among various Christian sects after they got here.
In fact, that kind of infighting persisted for a very long time after the new country was formed and its Constitution and Bill of Rights were writting, and was respectable during most of our history. Many Americans had no problem at all with discriminating against Catholics; the Irish and Italians (both populations are overwhelmingly Catholic in Europe) were long the butt of “Mick and Spick” jokes and putdowns, and as late as 1960 many people wondered if this country could elect a Catholic president (JFK was the first).
Religious freedom was written into the First Amendment because our forefathers came to this continent in part to escape from Europe’s endless sectarian wars and conflicts, and didn’t want that bleak history repeated here. Their solution was to let everyone worship any God they wanted, and to keep government from interfering with anyone’s personal religious beliefs.
But the fact these principles have been enshrined in our founding document doesn’t stop some people from still trying. There’s certainly no shortage of conservatives who insist America is a “Christian nation” (implication: no room for non-Christians here) and insist on their brand of Christianity being taught in public schools.
That won’t, of course, be the Christianity of Micks and Spicks. The Catholics solved that problem by setting up their own school system, which seems to work for them. But that doesn’t mean fundies should be allowed to take over public schools and turn it into a parallel parochial system promoting their own religion. The difference is that Catholics pay for their school system, whereas we all (including Catholics) pay for public schools. The Catholic school system is privately owned, and the schools are private property; the public schools are not, they are a governmental function, and therefore must be run according to the First Amendment prescription that government shall not establish or promote one religion in preference to others. Public schools must be religion-neutral for all students who attend them, whether they Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, atheists, or anything else. And the conservatives who don’t accept this must be made to accept it, if not by persuasion then by lawsuits, because we can’t allow them to take our country down Europe’s old path of having Catholic governments, Protestant governments, and endless wars between them.
Anyone who doesn’t grasp that is a dingbat.
You won’t find me supporting any religion as the official religion of the US. I can’t stand religious fundamentalism any more than you guys do. It’s like they want everyone to believe their religion is the “true” religion, but, as Mark Twain said, we’ve got about 7 “true religions” in the world. None any better or worse than the others.
Yes, I know people spoke different languages (and still do) in this country, but English became the predominant one in use today.
(Roger , are you still pissy about me correcting you for calling the South Carolina Boeing people “hillbillies” when the people of the coastal regions on VA, NC and SC are s predominantly of English stock and not hillbillies?)
I was thinking again today about Romney’s “47 percent” remark and the meme circulating among wingnuts that America’s working classes are “takers.”
According to their storytelling line, a horde of Democratic-voting riffraff take advantage of their superior voting numbers to exploit the poor abused Republican upper crust by creating various “entitlements” for themselves and writing them into law, which thereby expropriating the hard-earned wealth of the “producers” who create our nation’s wealth.
This nonsense deserves a Golden Goat Of The Century statuette for its sheer chutzpah.
Let’s start with the biggest lie first. All of America’s wealth, ALL of it, every bit of it, is created by workers. Without workers, absolutely nothing is produced. Those who call themselves “producers” get their money by owning stuff, not by making stuff. They sit in air-conditioned offices, not work on assembly lines and shop floors, and their “work” consists of manipulating numbers with calculators and spreadsheet programs, not straining their muscles or getting dirt and grease under their fingernails. As a general rule, in contemporary America, the more a job resembles real work the less it pays.
Now let’s rebut the second biggest lie. This one tries to create the myth that the “entitlements” they rail against consist of us taking from them. The truth is that working class entitlements are paid for with working class taxes. When we set up Social Security and Medicare, we paid for it by taxing ourselves, not taxing the rich. Income that comes from owning stuff isn’t taxed at all to pay for these entitlements. Only wages are taxed. If you and I work hard and pay FICA taxes for 40 years, and live an average lifespan, we’ll get back in benefits approximately what we paid in taxes and what our tax contributions to the system earned in interest. The capitalist class isn’t subsidizing these entitlements at all. Not a penny’s worth.
Same with my state pension, which was entirely paid for by deductions from my paychecks, and is merely a return of my contributions along with accrued interest and investment returns. There is no taxpayer subsidy of Washington State teacher and public employee pensions, and never has been, except for a minor COLA benefit that was repealed during the recent recession. Btw, I supported that repeal in my HA postings, arguing that it wasn’t a benefit I could expect because I didn’t earn it or pay for it, it was a gift from the legislature which therefore could be, and in difficult budget times should be, withdrawn. It was, and I’m not complaining. (Full disclosure: I never got a single COLA under that law, because it was repealed before I turned 65.)
Now let’s talk about unemployment compensation. Republicans hate unemployment compensation, habitually vote against extending or raising benefits, and love to complain that it promotes idleness and undermines the economy by weakening incentives to work.
Unemployment compensation is an insurance program, based on insurance principles, established by the Social Security Act. It’s funded with a nominal payroll tax on employers, but we all know that employer payroll taxes like FICA and UI and worker’s comp and part of the employee’s overall compensation. At least, that’s what conservative economists, human resources managers, and business people ceaselessly tell us. Especially when they want to use payroll taxes and other non-cash benefits as an excuse for not giving cash raises to employees. “Our health insurance costs went up this year, so we can’t afford to give you a raise.” The business world never tires of telling us that they consider all of their costs of having us on their payrolls to be labor costs and employee compensation, so let’s take their word for it. That means we, not they, pay the UI premiums. (They’re called “taxes,” but in reality they’re premiums in a government-run insurance program.)
Unemployment comp is insurance, just like car insurance or homeowners insurance. It insures you against accidentally becoming unemployed. Quitting a job without compelling cause, getting fired for misconduct or insubordination, and other voluntary unemployment disqualifies a worker from UC benefits in every single state. So does failing to conduct a diligent job search while collecting UC benefits. So it’s hard to see how this program promotes idleness or rewards laziness. The people who make that argument are the same ones who would sell you a car insurance policy and then refuse to pay if your car is flattened by a falling tree. You wouldn’t buy an insurance policy from people like that, so you shouldn’t elect them to run our unemployment insurance program, either.
Food stamps. Now here is a real subsidy, but this subsidy was invented by Republicans to benefit farmers, a Republican voting block. Originally, the government bought surplus farm output and stored it in warehouses, or gave it to other countries, to keep it off the domestic market so it wouldn’t drive down crop prices. But eventually somebody figured out it was more efficient to let the private food distribution system move the stuff into domestic grocery stores and give our own poor people coupons they could use to buy the stuff. This actually isn’t motivated very much if at all by compassion for the poor (there isn’t any, when Republicans run our government); the original purpose of the food stamp program, now called SNAP, was to help farmers and that’s still its purpose. But even though this is a Republican program designed to provide free taxpayer-funded largesse to a Republican voting block, that doesn’t stop conservatives from promoting ridiculous lies about predatory poor people using food stamps to buy liquor, lottery tickets, and prostitutes.
I thought about calling up Seattle strip club magnate Frank Colaccurcio Sr. to verify that his girls don’t accept food stamps in payment for illegal services rendered on the side, but I can’t, because he’s dead.
I could go on, working my way through the list of “entitlements” villified by rightwing liars and propaganda-mongers, but I won’t because it isn’t necessary and would be unduly tedious.
It’s entirely sufficient to make this simple statement: We pay for our entitlements ourselves, and we’re taking money from no one’s pockets except our own.
@14
The Dullard is my Republican-Teahadist alter-ego. He’s been mostly absent from HA for the the last year or so, so I realize you wouldn’t know that.
The answer is: liberals don’t leave out the bits about English or Christianity, neither are mentioned in the Declaration or the Constitution. To hear the Teahadists carry on, I’m pretty sure they think english and Christianity are in there.
@19 You “corrected” me? HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR
Thanks for the laugh, I needed that, after all this hot weather.
I was actually agreeing with you guys about how important it is to NOT have an official state religion in America. What do you do with people who disagree with that idea?
@19 (continued) Oh yeah, one more thing, while you’re busy “correcting” me, so far this year I’m making more than DOUBLE the 8% annualized return on my stock investments that you claimed is an unrealistic goal for stock investors. I own 40 different stocks and my annualized return on most of them in the first 6 months of 2013 is in the 20% to 30% range. So keep “correcting” me, Ten, the rest of us will overlook that you don’t know what you’re talking about. On any subject, it seems.
From 22,
Laugh all you want, Roger. You’re an very arrogant and self-centered person who is very intolerant.
@25 Expecting me to suffer fools gladly is asking for more than a reasonable amount of toleration.
From 24,
I’ll believe your numbers when they are independently verified by a neutral party.
From 26,
You are intolerant of anyone who doesn’t agree entirely with your point of view.
I think it was California that passed the first English only law in 1849. I’m on my phone away from WiFi so not going to check.
of course it was purely a dick move attempt to keep neutral Mexican landholders in no longer Mexican territory from government affairs after the Mexican-American war.
What we have here, folks, is a libertarian accusing a Democratic party hack and liberal propagandist of being “self-centered.”
To believe that, you have to believe liberals are selfish and conservatives aren’t. You have to believe that supporting programs and policies like social security, medicare, medicaid, unemployment insurance, workers compensation, food stamps, minimum wage increases, student aid, unions, etc., somehow has a purely personal profit motive. And that the conservative program of pushing tax cuts for corporations and the rich and trying to shift the country’s entire tax burden onto wage earners, slashing wages and benefits, outsourcing jobs, breaking unions, and opposing virtually every program that helps the middle and working classes, isn’t in direct furtherance of their own selfish financial interests.
Sheesh. Arrogant and self-centered? When he flings those terms in my face, he’s calling me a Republican. But saying something doesn’t make it true. Any imbecile can catapult words in all directions, like a toddler in a high chair throwing food on the floor. That’s what we have here.
OK trolls and usual suspects, enough of the bullshit about investment returns.
From time to time on this blog, some folks like to brag about how they made some money in the stock market. That’s all fine and good, but I suspect we’re not getting the true story when it comes to portfolio performance. After all, it’s not nice to make a $2,800 profit in a stock but lose $3,000 in other trades. So, if you’re an investor and NOT keeping track of your portfolio’s performance, you’re not doing a good job of managing your money. Excel’s XIRR function is a good and easy way to keep track of your portfolio’s performance. Let’s look at Joe, our hypothetical investor, for an example of how to use XIRR.
Joe received $12,000 from his great-aunt Gertrude for Christmas in 2012. He decides to invest this money into a portfolio and makes his first contribution on December 31, 2012. He adds $500 to this on January 14, $250 more on March 1, $1,500 more on April 28 (tax refund), $500 more on June 14 and $800 more on August 2. He has a big Halloween party and withdraws and spends $600 for that on October 31, 2013. At the end the year, his investment is worth $17,075. Using Excel’s XIRR function, what his portfolio’s return for the period 12/31/12 to 12/31/13?
Solution – Open Excel. Enter the following amounts and dates in columns A and B, starting in Cells A1 and B1:
Column A Column B
minus $12,000 12/31/12
minus $500 01/14/13
minus $250 03/01/13
minus $1,500 04/28/13
minus $500 06/14/13
minus $800 08/02/13
positive $600 10/31/13
positive $17,075 12/31/13
(Note that inputs into the portfolio are entered as negative numbers and outflows are entered as positive numbers. Joe’s initial investment and subsequent investments are entered as minus numbers, and the Halloween party withdraw and year-end values are entered as positive numbers. That’s how XIRR works – it’s dollar and time weighted.)
Type this formula into any blank cell below your inputs of cash flows and dates:
=XIRR(A1:A8,B1:B8)
The formula will return 0.150005 or 15%.
So, Joe made 15% in his portfolio in 2103. How are you doing with you portfolio? If you aren’t keeping track using XIRR, then you really are just fucking around. It’s like playing baseball without keeping score.
@29 I would’ve guessed it was aimed at the Chinese. You know, the Yellow Peril who built our transcontinental railroads for us, dying by the thousands in the process, for which they got neither decent pay nor minimal respect let alone citizenship and equality.
@31 I never brag about making money in the stock market. First of all, as Dizzy Dean said, “it ain’t bragging if you done it.” And I’ve done it. But that begs the issue. I have a serious purpose when I describe the absurd rewards that I and speculators like me enjoy for pushing money around in useless circles, and then compare that with how badly our system treats workers, in order to point out the irrationality of the system.
Anyone who thinks I’m bragging when I point out that I get taxed half as much as wage earners for doing nothing but sitting on my fat ass in front of a computer screen and occasionally flipping this or that stock is too much of a simpleton to comprehend the words “irony,” “facetious,” and “sarcasm.” That’s a complaint about our tax system, idiots. I want a tax system that’s fairer to workers than the one we have, and anyone reading my comments who doesn’t get that is a blockhead.
I also suspect there’s a fair amount of jealousy going on. People as stupid as our HA trolls can’t, of course, successfully navigate the financial markets. They have to commute, work for neurotic bosses, pay retail taxes, and all that; so, they take out their frustration on those of us who don’t have to put up with that shit because we’ve succeeded in beating the capitalists at their own game, and beating them out of capitalist profits they thought were exclusively reserved for them and their ilk.
@31 I use a real simple spreadsheet. At the end of a year, I add up what all my stocks are worth at the end of the last trading day of the year. The next year, I do the same thing, then I subtract the previous year’s number from the current year’s number to get my profit/loss for the current year, and then I divide that number by the previous year’s number to get my total return, expressed as a percentage, for the year just passed. It’s simple arithmetic that any sixth-grader should be able to do, which requires no algebra or calculus, just addition, subtraction, and division. The really interesting thing about math is that numbers don’t tell lies, have no ideology, they’re just what they are. Over the last 30 years, Mrs. Rabbit and I have put exactly $19,908.64 of our own money into brokerage accounts, about 40% of that in 1984-1986 and 60% in 2007-2009, all of which has been invested in stocks, and as of yesterday’s market close our portfolios (including a small amount of currently uninvested cash) were worth exactly $327,165.12. That doesn’t include whatever dividends came in since my May brokerage statement; our dividend income is roughly $10,000 per year. I’m just giving you the numbers; interpret them however you like.
I’m putting out some highly personal information here, and of course I’m reluctant to do that, but I want my HA friends to understand what is possible for them if they manage their finances to save even a little bit of money and learn the investing game, which admittedly requires some time and effort.
Our economic system is not set up to benefit workers. Wage earners are disadvantaged in every possible way, so much so, that in our culture most Americans’ highest goal is to become financially independent so they can quit working. The system, in every respect, is set up to coddle and benefit the owners of capital, which is what you are when you become a stockholder.
It seems I’m being criticized (at least it feels that way) for doing what every American rabbit is taught from early childhood to do, which is to be a Capitalist. Oh, I worked, all right; I started working at age 12 and worked for over 45 years (if you count my military service as “work” although somehow the word “job” seems inadequate to describe what I was tasked to do in Vietnam), so I’ve more than paid my dues. I also learned how bad Seattle’s commuter traffic is, what big assholes bosses are, and how unfair our tax system is to people who get money by working for it — and how unfairly skewed it is in favor of rabbits like me who now produce nothing and do now work but instead get money by playing pointless asset-flipping games. Which is how nearly all the very rich get nearly all of their money, too.
When they do it, it’s considered good, so why isn’t it also good when I do it? When the government gives me huge tax incentives to buy a stock for $35 and sell it for $55, why is there something wrong with me amassing hundreds of thousands of dollars I never worked for by doing exactly what the government and the capitalists who run our government and economy say they want us all to do?
I can’t figure that one out. It must be pure raw jealousy on the part of those who, for whatever reason, can’t or won’t or don’t play the capitalist game. It isn’t for lack of money; I had no money, I scraped together less than $20,000 over a 30-year period, but that didn’t stop me from being a successful stock-flipper.
American children are taught to get ahead in this country by working hard. That’s bullshit. That’s nothing but employer propaganda. Hard work gets you nothing but aching muscles and an ungrateful boss who’ll outsource your job and downsize you without a second thought. You’re nothing but a ledger cipher to those people. In a capitalist society like ours, you get ahead by owning stuff, not by working. It’s important that everyone understand that.
That’s why I do this posting. I’m tired of seeing my friends get screwed over by a system that exploits workers. I want to persuade them to become capitalists, too. If we can’t change the system that screws workers, then we should all be capitalists.
To make this clear, I don’t own gold or silver, I don’t own bonds or preferred stocks, I’m a 100% pure stock investors; and I don’t short stocks, or buy stocks on margin, or do options trading; I simply sell stocks for more than I paid for them for, and collect dividends while I own them. I do nothing riskier or more complicated than that. The stock I’ve owned the longest is Starbucks, which I bought in 1996 at a split-adjusted cost of $2.23 per share, which currently trades for about $67 a share and pays an annual dividend equal to 37% of my original cost. Our friend Ten scoffed when I claimed I can easily make over 8% a year in the stock market; my reply to that is 3,018% capital gain in 17 years and 37% of basis-cost dividend yield. Or, to summarize, “bullshit.”
We have hundreds of people in this country worth billions of dollars. Some of our fellow citizens have so much money they pay almost $50 million for a single chunk of graffiti “art.”
http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news.....68791.html
They didn’t get that money by working for it. Trust me, they didn’t; they got it the capitalist way, in most cases by investing other people’s money for them, and taking a big cut of the take off the top for themselves.
I don’t have to pay them to invest my money, because I can do it as well or better than them, so I keep the whole take for myself. If I were still a wage slave working for the state, like I did for over 25 years, I’d be facing furloughs and pay cuts and shrinking benefits and increasing workloads, and paying close to 40% of what I earned in taxes and deductions. That’s horseshit. I’ll stop “bragging” about how the obscenely preferential economic and tax benefits I enjoy as an unproductive stock flipper when our system stops fucking over the workers who produce all of our country’s real wealth and starts making capitalists pay their share of the freight for maintaining the system that made them rich through little effort of their own.
Well done, Roger. It never gets old to hear the truth spoken so well.
@27 I don’t give a rat’s ass whether you believe me.
@28 Nah, I’m merely a propagandist pushing a partisan point of view. It doesn’t bother me that you disagree with me. This is a free country. You can believe any horseshit that strikes your fancy, and that’s fine with me.
@20, On the AM band, the conservative talking head was saying how the founding fathers only wanted male white land owners to vote, but by today’s standards he would settle for having only those who pay taxes to be allowed to vote.
If you are poor, you are not a citizen in his America.
And, make no mistake about it, libertarianism is horseshit.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/.....as-edition
I will say one thing for the libertarians, though, they’re more consistent than Republicans. You don’t get as much hypocrisy and flip-flopping from them as you do from Republicans.
@41 They’ve made so many people poor they fear they’ve created a majority voting bloc against themselves.
To be clear, I’m not against all capitalism, I’m only against three kinds of capitalism: crony capitalism, corrupt capitalism, and preferential capitalism. Capitalism works fine once you get rid of the crooked bankers, insider trading, market rigging, monopolies, basis step-ups, shadow banking, derivatives, whale traders, K Street lobbyists, corporate welfare, unlimited anonymous campaign contributions and bought politicians, captive regulatory agencies, crony compensation committees, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, stock dilution, executive stock options, cooked books, no-bid government contracting, and Republican congress critters.
If you don’t understand why libertarianism and other anything-goes ideologies are horseshit, see #44. The whole libertarian movement consists of little more than giving license to society’s worst elements. If they want to make themselves useful, they should be in the streets protesting NSA spying on American citizens. I’m really disappointed with Obama on that. Liberal politicians aren’t supposed to sanction such behavior by our government. But then, Obama is no liberal, no matter what stupid wingnuts call him.
An eye opening exercise: compare the list of grievances in the declaration to tea party activities.
“refused assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.”
“forbidden his (their) governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, ….”
“called together legislative bodies … for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his (their) measures.” (see Rick Perry)
“has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.” (unless you are a “resource extraction” company)
“has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.” (judicial appointments)
“has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.” (DHS, TSA, …)
“has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.” (no Miranda rights! Try them as terrorists!)
“For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury”
“For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offences”
“abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments”
“plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people”
“excited domestic insurrections amongst us”
Pretty impressive list!
@46 Yeah, King George was a badass, and the people who flaunt teabags today want to get rid of our hard-won democracy and replace it with of the Koches, by the Koches, and for the Koches. I can’t figure that one out.
# 10: Sorry for coming in so late to respond. There was indeed a peace conference held at Hampton Roads, Virginia, I think it was in January 1864.
The Confederate Peace Commissioners left the terms up for discussion, except for two items which they said were non-negotiable: (a) seperation of the southern states from the Union, and (2) the repeal of the Emancipation Proclamation, and return of any slaves to their masters. Of course, Lincoln wouldn’t consider either of these terms, and the effort failed. It was a last attempt by the Confederacy to get something out of the war, and Lincoln saw it as an attempt to make political hay if the negitations failed, as he expected it would. But Lincoln showed up at the conference anyway.
@48 In other words, the “rebs” demanded that they be declared the victors (after all, what the hell else was the fighting about?) even though they knew they were getting their butts kicked. Not a whit of sense, but plenty of chutzpah.
# 49: The Confederate Congress had a lot in common with the current GOP-led Congress in Washington D.C. Lots of rabble-rousers who thought the war was still winnable. About the same time as the Hampton Rhodes conference Lee himself went to Richmond to try to convince them of the seriousness of the situation, but to no avail. Lots of these politicians would have rather seen the South burn down around them than to compromise on their basic principles.
@48
!865, not 1864.
Lincoln had to participate to keep up appearances, but it was clear to him that it would not amount to much. The tide of the war had shifted. Petersburg, VA had been under siege for 6 months and it was only a matter of time. Thomas had just destroyed Hood’s army at Nashville. Sherman had marched to the sea and was in the process of marching to Petersburg. Sheridan had defeated Early in the Shenandoah.
Lincoln said that the South could have peace any time it wanted. All they had to do is lay down their arms and stop fighting.
It wasn’t a peace conference so much as it was a peace “I’m here for the beer”-ence.
@9 why do so many republicans don’t believe in the freedom to be gay and the freedom to Marry who you want. I guess they don’t believe in freedom or equality. Scumbags.
# 51: Yep, it was 1865, not 1864 My mistake (I missed the year change).
Grant wasn’t exactly idle, either, although he was operating on a reduced basis. In general he was waiting on the roads to dry out in the spring thaw to accomodate his planned offensive. In the meantime he counted on attrition, mostly from desertions, to whittle down Lee’s army, while Grant kept extending his lines to the west in an attempt to cut off the railroad supplying Petersburg from the south. Lee had to create a fast-moving infantry force to prevent Union cavalry operations – his horses were sent elsewhee to forage, as the Petersburg/Richmond area was foraged out.
It became a waiting game. Both sides were waiting for the roads to dry enough to support the wagons and artillary needed by the army. Grant won that race, and was able to move to seize the Five Forks intersection, catching Picket in a poor situation with a gap between his lines and that of the rest of the army. He was off at a shad fry with friends when Sheridan crushed his force, and moved to roll up Lee’s flank.
@50 “Lots of these politicians would have rather seen the South burn down around them than to compromise on their basic principles.”
In this context, “principles” is the wrong word. Slave owners had no principles. The southern politicians who started a civil war to preserve slavery had no principles, either. Confederates fought the Civil War for the same thing Republicans are fighting for today: A free license to be inhumane assholes.
rodent @ 34:
$327,165.12?? After 30 years??
Jesus, rodent, you’re a small-timer! I thought you were talking about some real money!